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White: UFC worth 3.5 billion, some say more

Using the oldest trick in the journalist’s book, I drop into the conversation a figure of $1bn, which was what the New York Times estimated the business was worth a couple of years ago. Is that number still correct?

White chews on a slab of mozzarella taken from his second starter and says nothing at all. Then he whispers, “$3.5bn. Some would say more.”

I ask how he reached that number and he replies, mysteriously, “We have numbers. You know what I mean?”

Yet in the US his critics claim growth has stalled, with fewer fans tuning in to watch fights. Two of the biggest champions – Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva – are not currently fighting.

“I’ve been listening to people tell me that we we’re going to fail for 13 years," said White. "The media is full of s---. The company grows bigger every year.”

Both those stars are coming back, he insists, and reels off a list of other fighters. And it’s not just men, women now fight too. “Have you heard of Ronda Rousey?” he asks.

“She’s a rock star, man,” he says. “The women are different than the men – way more emotional. They’re a lot more catty. I’ve been trying to figure out women my whole life and now I’m trying to figure them out on a different level.”

Though fans love him, they don’t do so uncritically. He got a lot of stick last year when Georges St-Pierre, face mashed up and barely making sense after a fight, said on TV that he needed a break. At a press conference, White said the champion couldn’t have one. When I ask if he regrets being so unfeeling, he shrugs.

“That wasn’t about what you thought it was about. Here’s the bottom line; I’m never going to be the good guy, no matter what I do or what I say. I run a company with 500 of the baddest dudes in the world and I am the boss.”

Are bad dudes harder to manage than the norm?

“Nah. They’ve got smaller egos than journalists. They are smart guys. And some of them are smarter than me!”

I laugh, thinking he’s made a self-deprecating joke but then, seeing his expression, stop at once.

Our talk shifts to the future and I ask if the Fertitta brothers might one day sell up.

“Maybe,” he says, which isn’t the answer I’d expected. “At the end of the day we’re all young guys.” But for now the three of them love working together. Their secret? “No ego. People don’t believe that about me but I’m completely ego-free.”

As this is not the popular view of White, I ask him to explain. “

“I’ll tell you this. How many times do you think I’ve been offered to write a book? Big money. Three million. One time I sat down and I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’ But I got so f---ing sick of talking about myself, by day two, I was done.”

I always think of kalib starnes saying that it was not worth permanent injury in his fight with Nate Quary when he was badly hurt and people were booing him for not engaging. $10,000 when it is his 5th UFC fight seems like an insult to me when there is going to be long term damage to your body.

A companies worth is not a measure of liquid assets. Just because the UFC is worth 3.5b doesn't mean that even a small fraction of that is money that is available to pay fighters.

I'm not trying to defend the UFC, but the notion that the UFC can pay more to it's employees due to it's "worth" is misguided.

You know why people have eyes in the front? Because they have to move forward to see the landscape in the distance. If you had eyes in back all you could see is your home town getting farther away; you can't move forward like that. If your eyes are in front what you see in the distance keeps getting closer. That's what lets people move forward.

I do believe fighters should be paid more, mainly the bottom level guys. With that said, I think everyone is overlooking a few things.

The worth of a company is both just a subjective estimate, and different from the revenue of a company. It's not like the UFC is taking in a billion (or 3.5 billion) a year, paying fighters their salaries, and pocketing the rest.

Worth means how much they could sell the whole thing for, or how much money they would get if they sold off ALL their assets (similar but different definitions). Some things are more concrete and can be evaluated objectively; the fighters on their roster, their video library, their real estate property (offices around the globe). Other things are much more ambiguous and are only evaluated subjectively, the main one being the worth of the brand. How much are the words 'UFC' and 'Octogon' and 'Ultimate Fighter' worth in dollars? Different estimates on that will give different valuations of the company.

So now that the UFC has expanded globally quite a bit in the last few years, and have created brand recognition in other countries, their worth has probably gone up. Their potential to earn has increased because more people around the world associate UFC brand with MMA, which gives them first mover advantage. However, they're probably SPENT money to achieve that in the short term, and so their net revenue may have actually gone down.

I'm not saying I especially agree with the UFC business practices, or how they pay their fighters, or their general ability to plan for the future, or that the valuation of 3.5 billion is accurate. It's just important to note that even if they are worth 3.5 billion dollars, that doesn't necessarily translate directly to the cash flow of the company, which is used to pay the fighters.

Edit: Or, you know, what pyro said.

Last edited by SWIFTboy; 03-25-2014 at 02:51 PM.
Reason: too slow on the draw